“We eat, sleep and breathe digital marketing,” is how De defines Stryve’s company culture. For their own corporate marketing strategy, Stryve engages the powers of social media using Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, and a blog, the overall objective being to answer the problems of their target market. De explains that the setup a successful, sustainable social media strategy starts with a succinct brand core, and from that development of the brand key – a document that explains how the company differs from competition, and what the company personality is. The brand key outlines the goals and tone for all social media content. At Stryve everyone has a copy of the brand key at hand, which allows De to rest assured that all of the social media content posted by his team will be consistent with the brand core and digital strategy.

LinkedIn group Social Media Marketing Canada exists because of Stryve’s goal to solve problems. De was getting a lot of calls from clients wondering whether they should accept requests to connect on LinkedIn from strangers, and De decided, “I should answer that online.” A disappointing search on LinkedIn showed him only one social media-centric group, which lead De to create Social Media Marketing Canada. In the three years since the group was born it has attracted over 3000 members. And yes, he did post about adding strangers to LinkedIn.

In addition to lending a digital marketing helping hand, Stryve’s social media policy is the same as what they recommend to clients; to be consistent, memorable, and different. De stresses that successful social media content is entertaining and evokes emotion, and is absolutely not on point with what the competition is posting. He cites the blog post about Twitter ads as an example of how Stryve is practicing what they preach. The Twitter ad post was written because De says that he and his team saw a lot of social media content about optimizing LinkedIn profiles, and nothing about Twitter ads.

Stryve’s blog content is designed to help.

Aligning social media content with the corporate message pays off. De tells the story of the day a few years ago when he received a call from Intel asking for a proposal by midnight. De and his team pulled it off. The next day, having barely landed and not even exited the plane taking him on an unrelated trip, De found himself communicating with his office and the Intel contact by phone to modify the proposal with a window of only 45 minutes. Stryve secured the contract. When De asked why the rush, his Intel contact explained that the budget would be lost by 5 p.m. that day. And when De asked why he called Stryve, his contact described how he had searched LinkedIn for social media marketing, found Stryve, saw their content and the Social Media Marketing Canada group, headed for their website and picked up the phone.

Asking a lead how and why they came to Stryve is just one of the ways that Stryve measures the success of their social media marketing. De doesn’t whip out a spreadsheet of statistics or a numeric representation of leads converted from social media content when he talks metrics. “I think that we can really get lost in data,” says De, and goes on to breakdown metrics in terms of engagement and improvement. It is necessary to consider, not just how many followers a company has on their various social media profiles, but also how engaged those followers are, and whether the company is improving in both of those categories. Do followers like, favourite, share, or comment on posts? Are they coming back? Are they willing to give their name and email address to receive downloadable content or newsletters? As content is considered from and created for a number of goals, and with multiple tools, so are metrics. Stryve prides their blog on being a resource for others. If their blog isn’t helping anyone, if it isn’t relevant, the posts won’t be shared, defeating the blog’s purpose. Page views on the blog are, as expected, a measure of success, but Stryve takes a good hard look at reach as well. For example, several of Stryve’s blog posts have been shared on the Social Media Today website – multiple posts quite recently, at that. “Why Your Video-Only Content Doesn’t Break Through” was shared 583 times within three days once it was posted on Social Media Today.

Another example of metrics beyond lead generation is the Social Media Marketing Canada group. The LinkedIn group is a Stryve brand awareness tool, and although as seen with Intel it can bring in leads, the success of the group is measured by how many individuals join, and how many and how often members add to the discussions.

If you’re dying for a metrics measurement formula, De says compare your number of social media followers and their levels of engagement with your content to website traffic and lead generation. Stryve’s blog post on metrics handily includes this social media metrics to Return on Investment (ROI) conversion chart as a starting place.

Also measure the quality of the leads that come in; successful digital marketing will filter in the target market and filter out those that aren’t suited for your business. Stryve receives about 10 calls a month, which is suitable for their workload and staff size, and when those calls come in De asks them how they found Stryve so that he can trace that path and measure the information with the brand key. Search engine ranking is another metric to examine. De says, again, to measure where you show up in a search against the goals of the campaign or profile and the likelihood of your target market sharing your content. Some metrics tools that De recommends are Google Analytics, Ad Stage, MOZ, and Hootsuite.

In order to measure an accurate return on investment, companies need to understand their social media goals and what exactly they want to gain from their social media presence.

When you think of measuring metrics, go beyond a formula of X-amount of hits should equal Y-amount of leads. The return on investment isn’t a one-formula-fits-all. Each company is different, has different goals and therefore needs to devise a social media metrics measurement strategy that is tailored to those specific terms. Metrics isn’t just about followers. Measurements must also include engagement – likes, favourites, comments and shares – as well as who is engaged, what their reach is, and where your company stands in search engine rankings.

Submitted By: Catherine Muss, SMBP student, University of Waterloo

To contact the author of this entry please email at: cmwrites38@gmail.com

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Programme Director, Social Media for Business Performance.